Fallout - Season 1

“Fallout’s heart is in the right place, but more work needs to be done for it to become the inclusive show it thinks it is.”

Title: Fallout
Episodes Reviewed: Season 1
Creators: Graham Wagner 👨🏼🇺🇸 and Geneva Robertson-Dworet 👩🏼🇺🇸
Writers: Graham Wagner 👨🏼🇺🇸 (3 episodes), Geneva Robertson-Dworet 👩🏼🇺🇸 (3 episodes), Kieran Fitzgerald 👨🏼🇺🇸 (1 episode), Carson Mell 👨🏼🇺🇸 (1 episode), Karey Dornetto 👩🏼🇺🇸 (1 episode), Chaz Hawkins 👨🏾🇺🇸 (1 episode), and Gursimran Sandhu 👩🏽🇺🇸 (1 episode)

Reviewed by Gavin 👨🏼🇬🇧🌈♿

—MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD—

Technical: 5/5

Fans of the hit video game series Fallout shared a feeling of trepidation when Prime Video first announced an adaptation. Luckily, game remakes have generally fared better in TV rather than film (see Castlevania, The Last Of Us, and Arcane), and early trailers gave fans confidence that showrunners Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Graham Wagner might successfully bring the zany post-apocalyptic world to life. Now that the series is here, the results speak for themselves.

Fallout is one of the best shows of 2024: a fun and thrilling ride that captures the feeling of the iconic role-playing games. For existing fans, it’s easy to get caught up in the absurd amount of references and iconography brought to life. The costumes, props, and colorful characters seem directly taken from the games’ code. The show even manages to capture gameplay aspects of the original Fallout material. Vault-dweller Lucy (Ella Purnell) acts as the player; she’s an optimistic individual living in an idyllic underground community before being forced to venture outside into a brutal nuclear wasteland full of dangerous bandits and radioactive creatures. As she gains experience (or “XP” in gaming parlance) on her journey, Lucy’s gear and outfit change, as does her personality. Cynicism creeps in after she contends with organ-harvesting robots and gun-slinging ghouls, and an internal battle on how to morally navigate a deprived world begins.

At the heart of Fallout is a well-paced and cleverly edited story with nuanced character arcs. The timeline flits between the retro-future world of 2077 (before the nuclear fallout) and 2296, where the meat of the action takes place. Crossing paths with Lucy are two other key players: a Brotherhood of Steel member and a mutated gunslinger. With three central characters operating across two timelines, Fallout could have been an overwhelming mess, but the show’s structure unifies a pressing quest for each lead to embark on whilst teasing answers to some enticing mysteries for several backstories.

Ultimately, Fallout hits all the right notes. Resonant character arcs and themes of capitalism and morality are naturally paired with the games’ tongue-in-cheek gags and gore. This is a nuclear wasteland audiences will want to return to.

Gender: 4/5
Does it pass the Bechdel Test? YES, but barely

Among the three central characters, the show and its marketing make it clear that Lucy is the lead. Brilliantly played by Purnell, Lucy’s blinding hopefulness is endearing and never annoying. Brought up on belief systems around niceness and building a positive future, stepping out into the often lawless wasteland challenges her mentally as well as physically. Lucy stands out for doubling down on her ideology of being kind in an unkind society, even as she develops a bit of an edge. She’s a good-natured woman who is eager to learn about different people, even after being nurtured in the vault with certain prejudices. No wonder she’s become a fan-favorite character.

There are also numerous supporting women worth mentioning, all in positions of power. Sarita Choudhury’s Lee Moldaver is initially seen as an antagonist who kickstarts Lucy’s story after attacking her vault, but is later revealed as a leader striving to do what’s best for her society of outcasts. Leslie Uggams turns up the charm as Betty Pearson, Vault-Tec executive and wife of Cooper Howard (Walton Goggins) before he becomes the Ghoul. Her arc takes a dark turn as the desperation of surviving an imminent nuclear attack with her daughter forces her to make devastating choices. All of the women in Fallout are captivating, flawed human beings with standout moments. Praise should also go to trans actor Xelia Mendes-Jones, who portrays the nonbinary Dane in a brief but pivotal role as a member of the Brotherhood of Steel.

Where the show falters with its female and nonbinary characters, however, is the way their stories are tied to those of men. Lucy only ventures out of the vault to rescue her kidnapped father. She’s captured herself and taught harsh lessons of survival by a masculine Ghoul. She makes an alliance with, and has romantic feelings for, another man. In fact, Lucy doesn’t spend much time with other women at all. Toward the end of the season, she makes decisions that conflict with the demands and ideologies of the pivotal men in her life, but she is otherwise often robbed of agency.

Race: 3.5/5

Aside from Lucy and Ghoul, the narrative also follows Maximus, played by Black American actor Aaron Moten. Much like the other characters in the show, Maximus is an imperfect individual who often makes morally questionable decisions. Having grown up in the militaristic and religiously coded Brotherhood of Steel, Maximus sees raw power and violence as tools and solutions in a broken world. Over the course of the season, he starts to mature and even take on moments of heroism in service of others. Moten delivers a terrific performance, effortlessly getting across Maximus’ childish mindset in funny and relatable ways—his eyes light up when using the Power Armor for the first time, like a child with a new shiny toy to play with.

People of color also fill out background and supporting roles, with the majority of them being Black actors. Indian-Filipina American actor Angel Desai also gets a couple of lines in a one-off scene. Surface diversity aside, however, it’s important to note that Fallout as a franchise has a complicated relationship with race. It uses allegories of racism, with humans looking down on Ghouls and Synths, yet sidesteps any meaningful conversations about racial identity. In the Fallout universe, racism apparently ceased to exist after the 1950s, where the games’ timeline deviates from our own history. It’s common knowledge that post-WWII America was a time of virulent hate crimes, egged on and protected by racist Jim Crow laws. So the unexplained turnabout in the Fallout universe feels exceedingly glib. Furthermore, having Maximus and other characters of color take on “colorblind” roles robs them of their racial identities and any opportunity to explore them.

Disability: 3.5/5

Aside from a character who briefly (and violently) becomes an amputee before their demise, there aren’t any characters with visible or known disabilities. However, the Ghouls could be viewed as an allegory for chronic illness. Their skin and flesh decay before they become “feral,” recalling necrosis or dementia. With Goggins’ Ghoul as one of the main characters, significant screen time is dedicated to how he deals with his condition. Ghoul fights tooth and claw to get his hands on medication that prevents his transformation from progressing, and we see the effects of another Ghoul who eventually becomes feral.

Behind the scenes, the crew made efforts to make sure the Ghouls didn’t become simple monsters. Speaking to Polygon, costume designer Amy Westcott said that “... keeping the ghouls human was really super important to us, because they were people once and that was important to remember. … Even the feral ghouls. I mean, they were supposed to be in rags, really. But then sometimes there would be a shoe or a tie or an earring, like, something. So you get some remnant that they were a person once, and I think that we all empathize with them as well.”

Much like its approach to race, Fallout explores disability through allegories that are effective. But it would be great if writers go the extra mile in future seasons and directly include disabled characters in main and supporting roles.

Mediaversity Grade: B 4.00/5

Fallout’s heart is in the right place, but more work needs to be done for it to become the progressive show it thinks it is. Having a racially and gender-diverse team in front and behind the camera can only get you so far in producing inclusive stories. These relatable, lovable characters would have benefited from being allowed to reference their identities with real-world contexts in mind, instead of having them tucked away in favor of easier answers.

Like Fallout? Try these other post-apocalyptic shows.

Grade: BLiAugust 13, 2024Female/Nonbinary Creator, Great for: Technical